The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change commissioned by Tony Blair’s Labour government in the UK has been presented and interest in it has now waned.
The future economic costs alone of climate change are estimated to be greater than the Great Depression and the two world wars combined.
The Kyoto Protocols critics argue that the protocol is failing or dead because it does not include the worlds biggest industrial emitter of greenhouse gases (the USA) or because its current targets barely reduce global emissions or because it does not regulate China, India or Brazil.
Between now and 2030 developing countries will account for 75% of the increase in CO2 new emissions. At the UN Climate Change Convention in Nairobi, the 131 G77 countries led by China refused to consider voluntary emissions reduction targets for developing countries.
China is a major emission problem. In 1995 China was ranked 2nd in the world by emissions after the US. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) China will become the world’s largest emitter by 2010 which is 10 years earlier than predicted.
Most people say China is not doing enough on global warming.
The Chinese think the West should help them financially and with technology transfers on renewables and clean coal technologies.
There are those who think or take the view that countries like China, India and Brazil who have signed the Protocol meet their obligations i.e. meet the reporting obligations and participate in the Clean Development Mechanism which enables developed countries to invest in the developing world, cut emissions and get emissions credits as a result.
In the protocol, developing countries were not assigned emissions reduction targets in deference to their argument that the established countries should take responsibility for the historical burden of greenhouse gases. The protocol also allows developing countries to raise their living standards towards parity with the West.
The USA abandoned the Protocol in 2001 because they said it exempts 80% of the world’s countries and would affect the US economy too much. China holds a similar view to the US saying it is being used as a tool to contain its development. The Chinese see economic development as a way to keep domestic political stability and extend China’s influence in the world.
Last year 117 coal-fired power plants were built in China officially, but unofficially many more than this were built.
The International Energy Agency says that China will surpass the USA as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2009 a decade earlier than originally forecast. This should be no surprise given China’s annual growth which has averaged 9% a year over the last 25 years. This growth has been fuelled by its large deposits of cheap coal.
70% of China’s energy is from Coal compared to 25% in the US and 18% in Europe.
By 2020, despite plans to diversity energy with a 5 fold increase in nuclear, 15% from renewable sources and use more environmentally friendly gas –powered power generators, coal will still provide more than 65%.
Three reasons for this are –
1. Cheap coal in China
2. Energy needs are immediate
3. To reduce China’s dependency on imported oil they are looking at projects to convert coal to oil. This is viable when oil costs $US30+ a barrel.
The Three Gorges Hydro dam which comes online in 2009 will generate as much power as a coal fired power station which can be built in 10 weeks (the hydro dam took 15 years).
Since 2000 1/3rd of the increase in global oil demand has come from China.
China’s coal mining kills thousands a year –4.48 deaths per million tonnes versus 0.013 deaths per million in Australia. They also cause a lot of subsidence and require 200 residents to be relocated per million tonnes.
The biggest problem is air pollution in China costing the economy 3+% of GDP.
One of the major concerns is that the coal in China has high levels of mercury and selenium.
China’s power industry is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in China according to the IEA.
44% of the sulphur-dioxide emissions
80% of the nitrous-oxide
26% of the carbon-dioxide
China is unlikely to meet the emission targets set for the 2008 Olympic Games.